Of course, fossil are being created as fast as they are being destroyed. It is just that the bug or fish or mammal trapped in sediment today to become a fossil-to-be in a century, is not of great interest nor something amazing to discover today. But in 50 million years… After all, people are lost and buried in sediments as a result of tsunami, volcano, hurricane, and even in crimes, on a regular basis.

In fact, what of archaeologists in 5000 years excavating Hollywood’s Forest Lawn with preserved corpses of men, women, cats, dogs, buried under stone monuments. These ancient people of legend. Will they be trying to extract DNA to maybe clone Ronald Reagan because he has been passed down in history as a savior of society and long worshiped?.

The thing about fossils is that the only ones you ever find are the ones that are on an erosive surface or excavation, most of the earth’s fossil bearing rock is nicely buried. There is a reason geologists love roadcuts and quarries.

re. 6, I feel blessed to live in Orange Country, California. I’ve been reading a few authors recently (also Fuchsia Dunlop) who assume the reader has never heard of the authentic cuisine. No, it’s all mostly within 15 minutes. Though for some odd reason you have to head up to LA for Ethiopian.

It is amazing how many parts of the country offer “authentic” cuisine. Almost any major city, even the ones that are regularily mocked, has a few places if you know where to look, especially in the sunbelt. And even supposedly remote backwaters are not as bad as you might think. For example, I can find decent pho in some of the oddest places, the hardest is finding very good Chinese or Mexican but if you are willing to go for the more obscure regions you can usually hit paydirt there.

Caveat: I know little about the Eastern half of the US & Canada, but I regularily travel in parts of the Interior West and Midwest that Hollywood likes to mock, and I have more luck than you would expect.

“Here in the U.S., Pad Thai usually arrives a pile of noodles plated in a puddle of oil. Many taste as sweet as a lollipop and come stained red by ketchup.”

Hahaha, no. If that’s true, then the author has no idea how to look for pad thai.

As for Chinese/Mexican cuisine, I have yet to find any decent places in New Jersey (but see below, this might just now be changing). There’s some fun “fusion Mexican” places that wrap their preferred food in a tortilla and call it Mexican, but it is so far from Mexican that it’s silly. Among my friends, I have an ongoing series: “There Is No Good Mexican Food In New Jersey,” which has involved such horrors as asking for a tostada, and getting the response back, “Ranch or Italian?” or a photo of a chile relleno that more resembles that photo of castoreum glands circulating the internet than a battered stuffed pepper. I might have finally hit paydirt, however. Two places opened up in the past year; one’s a San Francisco style fast food burrito joint which…. well, okay, I think I still prefer Qdoba, but it will do in a pinch, and a boutique taqueria that actually uses fresh ingredients, asadero, and corn tortillas. It’s about comparable to what you can find at rural gas stations in California.

I come from the San Joaquin Valley, and boy, the folks who live there have no idea just how wonderfully well they can eat.